


Forever is just a place in someone else's story

by 62miles



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M, there are different ways of interpreting this story, which makes tagging difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/62miles/pseuds/62miles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They bought the table together, made up their minds while on opposite sides of the thing just as they are now. They singled it out at the secondhand furniture store because the circular ones were either too big for two people or so small that Jonghyun wanted to add back their missing corners. And because Jinki thought the rectangular ones were weird for having a pair of long edges and a pair of short ones.</p><p>Were they going to sit further apart on bad days and closer on good days?<br/> </p><p>So square it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever is just a place in someone else's story

**Author's Note:**

> colors, words, a trip to the grocery store; a spark and sometimes I catch the bits and pieces of a story. this story was originally written in 2013 and has also been posted to my LJ, my tumblr, and at the fansite duets. it remains something that I look back on fondly.

 

 

 

Jinki's hair is a lighter shade of brown than he remembers it to be, Jonghyun thinks. Or maybe that's just the way the sunlight spilling through the window is hitting him. It even paints half of his face a smooth spotless white, not white like the walls of this closet of a dining room before they put up the sheets of Victorian wallpaper but white like alabaster.  
  
A little translucent.  
  
See, there, when he turns his head just a little, even his right iris looks golden. But it's not. Jonghyun knows. It's not, thus his hair probably isn't lighter. So Jonghyun scrutinizes him that much harder, as if trying to verify that nothing else is strange or out of place.  
  
  
The other man squirms a little under the intensity of his stare. He glances up at him and then drops his eyes again, tugging on the cuff of his navy blue cardigan.  
  
Jinki likes to retreat, that's what he likes.  
  
He likes to retreat into his clothing, his skin. He likes to keep his hair long so some of it will always untuck itself from behind his ear and fall over his cheeks, into his eyes. He likes to keep his chin angled towards his chest, toes curled, the heels of his hands hidden safely inside long sleeves.  
  
Even now, he pulls back, even when they've got a table between them. Even when he knows Jonghyun can't reach him where he is in his chair unless Jonghyun stands up and leans over.  
  
  
He knows. He must know.  
  
  
Heck they bought the table together, made up their minds while on opposite sides of the thing just as they are now. They singled it out at the secondhand furniture store because the circular ones were either too big for two people or so small that Jonghyun wanted to add back their missing corners. And because Jinki thought the rectangular ones were weird for having a pair of long edges and a pair of short ones.  
  
Were they going to sit further apart on bad days and closer on good days?  
  
  
So square it was.  
  
(And good thing, too, because even this table, as small and lonesome as it looked in the store, manages to crowd them up against the walls.)  
  
  
He remembers complaining how the face of the thing was a little too worn, but then Jinki brushed a hand softly over it and he suddenly figured they could swing by the home improvement store on their way back and grab a pack of sandpaper and a bucket of wood varnish.  
  
  
  
Jonghyun clutches his mug—a bright lime color—more tightly and the heat of the tea stings against his palms.  
  
  
  
He watches the other man skate pale fingertips along the edge of the table. Jinki does that to almost every table he sits at. Jonghyun can't be sure how many months of knowing Jinki it took before he caught onto the habit, but he knows it puts the other man at ease. Jinki does it when he's anxious, when he's upset, when he's afraid, when he's angry.  
  
It's been years and years and small things like this are still the same.  
  
Change is not something that Jinki does. It's not something that happens to him either. They'd met in school when Jonghyun couldn't find a pencil to write his exam with and Jinki offered him one of his extras, even waiting outside and picking Jonghyun out of the last stragglers to emerge from the room just so he could get the pencil back. He still looks pretty much the same as then, except maybe his hair curls a bit more around the shell of his ear.  
  
But that might just be today.  
  
  
And some things have changed.  
  
  
  
Jonghyun reaches out for Jinki's left hand and Jinki jerks in surprise, nearly knocking the back of his chair against the wall behind him. He looks at Jonghyun, alarmed, and quickly slips both hands under his thighs and sits on them. Jonghyun's heart falls a little; he threads his fingers under the handle of the mug and goes back to holding it as if it were the pillar propping up the sky.  
  
  
  
He turns his head to the shepherd dog-shaped clock ticking away on the wall, a bizarre piece of decor whose history he now can only vaguely recall. It might share the same origins as the hen-shaped teapot they've been using since he broke the old one. He's not sure.  
  
The glare on the glass cover makes the clock difficult to read. _Tick tock, tick tock_.  
  
  
  
Jonghyun clears his throat. "I promised you we'd go to New Zealand to see the sheep."  
  
Jinki's mouth twists to one side, but he shakes his head. "There are ranches here, too. And I decided I don't like airplanes, remember?"  
  
"I said I'd make lots of money and we could buy a farm there."  
  
Jinki hums. The topic of choice visibly relaxes him and Jonghyun is glad that he's doing something right. "But then I'd be reading books and you'd be writing songs and there would be no one to take care of the animals or even the garden. It wouldn't have worked."  
  
"You said you'd like it though!" Jonghyun asserts, as if fearful that the other man would go back on his words. "You said it'd be really nice to have acres and acres of rolling green pastures, thickets of trees, long wooden fences and big tall barns..."  
  
"Red barns." Jinki adds quietly. "White outlines."  
  
"Right. And we'd have a house instead of an apartment." Jonghyun nods, eager. "We'd have a porch and a silver wind chime hanging from the eave. We'd have a big old tree out front, too, and I could tie a used tractor tire to it with ropes and make you a swing."  
  
"But I'd be the one climbing the ladder since I'm better with heights."  
  
Instead of retaliating, Jonghyun chuckles. "Remember when I said I wanted to paint the living room walls either pistachio green or robin egg blue?"  
  
Jinki scrunches his nose a little. "Yellow, yellow's better."  
  
"No, you said you wanted to put up wallpaper. So I said fine, we'll have five bedrooms up stairs and you'll have to let me paint each wall a different color. That way I can try out twenty different paints."  
  
"It'd be a mess."  
  
"No it wouldn't!"  
  
"And not only that, you wouldn't be able to use up any of them and we'd have twenty buckets lined up in the garage, sitting there till the paint goes bad—I'm not letting you paint the barns any other color, by the way, and you're not allowed to paint the sheep."  
  
Jonghyun doesn't have a comeback for that.  
  
  
  
He turns his eyes from the clock to Jinki's Christmas mug, standing untouched on its handwoven coaster. The minute hand hits twelve and soft barks fill up the gap of silence.  
  
They had an argument about this, the barking. It used to be that for every hour he spent at home he'd get scared out of his wits once because the thing was so enthusiastically loud. They never got rid of the clock though, and thankfully as the battery aged, the sound died down.  
  
  
  
"I knew from the beginning." Jinki draws up his knees and braces them against the table.  
  
"Knew what?"  
  
"That you were only in it to raise dogs."  
  
"Well rather than crop fields you wanted green pastures. Pastures are good for raising livestock and sheep are cuter than cattle. So if we were to raise sheep on those pastures, then we'd need dogs to herd them. It works out: you get your sheep ranch and I get my dogs."  
  
"I said you could get one though."  
  
"We'd need more than one shepherd—"  
  
"No, I mean for the apartment. I said you could get one."  
  
"No you didn't. When did you say that?"  
  
"Before we got the dog clock." Jinki finally meets his gaze, expression a little expectant, waiting for him to remember. "You were even looking up what breeds have what temperament, how active they are, how big they grow."  
  
Jonghyun tilts his head. "But we didn't end up getting one."  
  
"We didn't." At some point Jinki has tentatively returned his hands to the table. He rubs at the knuckles on his left hand, the skin there a little red and dry. "Before we could go to the pet store, it turned out that our neighbors were moving across the ocean and you agreed to take care of their cats without even telling me."  
  
And that's as close to accusing Jonghyun as Jinki gets.  
  
"But you don't understand they were looking up at me with their big round eyes like Puss in Boots—" He brings his hands towards his face with fingers curled, ready to imitate the pose.  
  
"Jjong, I'm allergic to cats."  
  
Jonghyun's fingers find their way back around his mug.  
  
  
  
It's not even a very hurt or hurtful sentence, not a loud one either. Not annoyed, not angry. Jinki says it like a patient adult reminding a troublemaking child to wash his hands before eating. But suddenly Jonghyun breathes out and deflates till he's got his forehead against the table, almost as if he's prostrating.  
  
  
  
"I'm sorry." His voice turns up high at the end.  
  
  
  
He tries to put weight into the apology because two words are too short to say what he needs to say, but the silence that follows weighs heavier. He feels gravity wrestling with him for his ribcage and the vacuum inside his chest sucking it back. That's when he takes both hands off his mug and covers his face. The metal of his ring burns a little against his left eyelid.  
  
  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."  
  
  
  
But he doesn't find forgiveness. Jinki retreats again, into the chair, into the stillness of the room, into the recesses of his mind.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The shadows swing in a slow waltz turn. The sunlight dims and, like dough in the oven, takes on a gradual golden-brown hue. Eventually Jonghyun rises from his seat and smiles a small uncertain smile, then he takes both mugs—both full—and rinses them out in the sink. He washes clean the hen-shaped teapot too. And his face. He washes his face.  
  
He owns a beat-up old stick-shift, all sharp lines and chiseled angles, wide but hardly spacious. Kibum, with whom he's been crashing, doesn't own a car and takes the subway to and back from his studio. So instead of getting it over with all in one go, he's been taking repeated trips to pick up his things, a few boxes at a time. He shows himself to the door where the last of such boxes sits and, with a shaky sigh, he lifts it off the floor.  
  
Jinki has followed him and is standing just inside the doorway to the kitchen. He tugs one side of his cardigan a bit further over his stomach and keeps his arms crossed over his body.  
  
"I'll walk you down."  
  
Jonghyun, whose mouth is ajar in preparation for some sort of goodbye, pauses in surprise. He looks at Jinki and Jinki looks back at him.  
  
"I'll walk you down." The other man repeats himself, but doesn't step forward.  
  
"Oh, okay." Jonghyun snaps to his senses and gets moving. He turns to the door before realizing that he doesn't have a free hand to open it with. Raising a leg and balancing the box against his thigh, he quickly twists and pulls on the knob. "Okay, yeah, than—that'd be nice."  
  
  
The apartment is on the second floor, so it doesn't take long before he's out of the building. That's when he stops. And he sees it then, the city, hears it, all as if he's experiencing this place for the first time. This is where he was born. This is Seoul. Not New Zealand.  
  
There are no tractor tire swings, no tall red barns, no sheep.  
  
  
There is no—  
  
  
  
"Jonghyun!"  
  
He searches for the owner of that voice and blinks to clear his eyes.  
  
  
It's Kibum. Kibum is half-running half-walking towards him, a scowl of concern on his face. Jonghyun's knees are being uncooperative, but he manages to walk forward. They meet at the spot where Jonghyun had parked his car and Kibum gives him an awkward hug around what he's carrying. The forceful slaps to his back hurt in a way that makes his eyes water again.  
  
Without saying another word, Kibum takes the car keys out of Jonghyun's pocket and opens the trunk. When Jonghyun doesn't move, he pries the box out of the other man's hands and fits it in with all the other junk that Jonghyun insists on keeping—broken windshield wipers, old maps, sun-bleached pairs of fuzzy dice, two folding stools...  
  
"I told you our show is tomorrow and I can come with you to get your things on Saturday. Why did you come alone today? You said you'd go see that stupid comedy movie with Taemin remember? When you didn't show up and wouldn't pick up your phone, he almost freaked out." Kibum shuts the trunk and turns to Jonghyun. "Let's go grab food. You can apologize to Taemin over dinner."  
  
The other man doesn't respond.  
  
Kibum follows his line of sight to the entrance of the apartment building. It's empty. Nobody's there.  
  
  
But Jonghyun knows; Jinki must have retreated behind the corner. He must have seen Kibum—heard him—and he must have hidden himself. The two of them never really got along, Jinki and Kibum.  
  
  
He's about to say _wait_ when he feels the squeeze on his elbow. _Wait, let me go talk to him._ He doesn't get to say it before Kibum pulls him into a hug again, a proper one this time, and he slaps his back till it hurts, again. Kibum is warm and soft in his arms and he smells of the cologne that Jonghyun bought him for his birthday; his throat constricts.  
  
"Don't." Kibum's voice is low and muffled against his shoulder. The single syllable wobbles with hurt. "Jjong, don't."  
  
Jonghyun finally yanks his eyes away and looks down Kibum's back at the pavement beneath his heels.  
  
  
  
"Okay." He finally hears himself say, small and frail and sad.  
  
  
  
Kibum smiles with enough bravery for the both of them and gently herds him to the passenger side of his car. Jonghyun lets the other man push him inside and arrange him so that no limb will get caught by the door. He even lets Kibum clip in his seat belt. Then the door slams shut and he drops his head sideways against the window.  
  
He breathes in and then out. And he fogs up the view he has of himself in the side view mirror.  
  
The car dips slightly when Kibum gets into the driver's seat. A second slam is followed by a second click. Then the key fobs jangle as Kibum coaxes the car to life. Jonghyun folds his arms over his stomach the way he's seen Jinki do countless times before and he retreats too, into himself.  
  
  
And then he closes his eyes.  
  
  
  
  
And he lets Kibum drive him away, away from the green pastures and lazy afternoons spent on the porch.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Away from a story that had been his.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Retreats into the recesses of his mind. His. Whose?


End file.
